Highlights

Star India has introduced new channels packs in its portfolio for the subscribers who would like to watch its Sports and English movies channels. As compared to its previous channel packs, these new packs come at a 30% lower price thus giving more affordable options to the viewers to have access to English movies or sports channels. It is worth noting that Star India was reluctant up till now to include its English movie or sports channels separately into a pack. If viewers wanted to watch these channels they had to buy them along with Star’s Indian channels thus increasing the monthly rental for the subscribers.

Another option for the subscribers was to go with the a-la-carte way, but even that proved to be expensive. A rough calculation gave us the figure of Rs 142 which the subscriber would have to pay along with a Rs 60 network charges to watch Star India’s six sports channels and 7 English channels in HD quality. Overall, if viewers wanted to watch these 13 channels of Star India, then they would have to shell out around Rs 200 per month, which in many cases is almost the entire monthly subscription value for many DTH customers. It is evident that due to this excessive pricing, Star India was probably losing out on its reach.

Most Subscribers Opted for Operator Curated Packs

Courtesy of the new channel packs, the pricing of the channels has come down to around Rs 140, which includes the Rs 40 network fee. This way the subscribers will now be able to get these channels at a much more affordable price. Star India had previously thought that it would increase the reach of its Indian channels along with its English channels, but it seems that the strategy had to be changed after seeing the market reaction. On the similar lines, most subscribers around 85% of the lot have not opted for broadcaster packs instead have gone with the multi-broadcaster packs curated by their respective operators.

New Star India Packs Starting at Rs 20

As part of its new debut, Star India has launched its English Mini pack which is available for Rs 20 and includes channels like Fox Life, Star World and Star Movies. The English Mini HD pack by Star India is available for Rs 35. Further, the English Premium pack by Star India which lists English as well as various sports channels by the broadcaster is available for Rs 49. Lastly, the most expensive of all these packs is the English Premium HD pack of Rs 85, which includes the Star World HD, many sports channels, Nat Geo Wild HD, Baby TV HD and more.

Arpit spends his day closely following the telecom and tech industry. A music connoisseur and a night owl, he also takes a deep interest in the Indian technology start-up scene and spends rest of his time spilling poetry and stories on paper.